Entrepreneurial insights with Moe Ibrahim, Advisor to GoneTrippin

Interview with Moe Ibrahim Entrepreneur, Investor and Advisor to GoneTrippin who promote local travel; Make Every Trip an Adventure™ with outdoor/urban exploration, local eats, and new experiences.

What is your background briefly?

My parents immigrated from Cairo to America the year before I was born. My father was a machinist and mother was a housewife. They worked very hard to create a life for their 4 children in a foreign country where they had no friends and no relatives. My dad was probably the hardest working man I have ever met. I got my work ethic from him as I’m a bit of a workaholic. I excelled academically throughout my education. Despite graduating with a B.S. in Biology from Siena College in Upstate, New York, I started my career on Wall Street analysing companies undergoing bankruptcy. My job was to identify those companies that had the potential to survive when nobody else believed in them. We made money by investing at discounted valuations and selling when the companies recovered at much higher valuations. I moved to Singapore a few years later (1999) to set-up my investment’s bank Asian operations. After running the bank’s business for a few years, I left to set-up my own business, doing essentially the same thing.

After analysing thousands of companies, one thing became clear. Owning real estate enabled many companies that would have otherwise failed to survive. I therefore turned my attention to the hotel industry, where many companies have poor cash flow but attractive real estate assets (such as land). For the past 20 years, I have owned and operated hotels and restaurants. I have built online travel platforms and was deeply involved in all aspects of the hospitality industry for a very long time. I currently own a resort in Thailand, I have an investment management company called The Mozaic (www.themozaic.com) and I have recently launched Deelish Brands (www.deelishbrands.com), a restaurant development business via which I own the Singapore franchise rights for Fatburger and Blimpie. We will be launching two restaurants in Singapore in 2018 and 5 more in both Singapore and Jakarta in 2019. I also have a laundry business and an affordable housing development project in Jakarta.

Does it seem like a logical background to what you do now?

The mission of The Mozaic is to find the world’s most passionate entrepreneurs and work closely with them to create some truly amazing businesses. Two years ago, I enrolled in Harvard’s Owners and President’s Management Program (also known as OPM). I have one more Unit to complete in March 2019 before I graduate. The Harvard program has enabled me to take my experience and combine it with established frameworks to do exactly what I want to do, build really amazing businesses. With Deelish Brands, I want to promote entrepreneurship thru franchising. I believe in brand value, and the importance of established processes and procedures. Franchising gives hospitality entrepreneurs a better shot at succeeding their first time out of the gate vs trying it on their own. I love working with people, sharing my business experience and doing whatever I can, for the ventures in which I am involved, to make them successful.

Why did you get involved with this ICO?

Prior to launching Deelish Brands, I spent about 6 months studying the cryptocurrency space, which I find fascinating. As part of my studies, I attended a class to gain my certification in data center design, where I met some truly awesome folks. Via these relationships, I was introduced to Gone Trippin’. As I mentioned previously, I built my own online travel agency several years ago. I later sold this business which continues to operate as a hotel booking engine for many hotels. I have significant domain expertise with respect to both the operational side of the travel business as well as the technical side. After discussion with the team, whom I found very impressive, I was excited to get back involved with a hospitality related travel product. This is a fascinating space and there’s so many ways to create value for consumers.

I believe that the travel industry desperately needs blockchain technology. I have been on every side of the travel business. Hotel owner, founder of a travel start-up and of course, as a prolific traveler myself. The average person still visits dozens of websites before making a travel decision. There is a massive lack of trust in the industry, which is dominated by middlemen who’s only incentive is to make a commission. There are fraud issues, safety issues, wrong information issues, etc. I believe that Gone Trippin’ has the potential to address many of these issues over time by creating a safe platform, with real information, at the best possible price for consumers.